


a gift to the fandom

by proletaricat



Series: Give Slav some Love [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Crack Treated Seriously, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pre-Season/Series 03, there was nothing in the keith/slav tag so..., what is my life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 10:57:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11712990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proletaricat/pseuds/proletaricat
Summary: Keith misses Shiro more than he can express, and he seeks out comfort from the last person, err... creature... to spend any significant amount of time with him: Slav.It's romantic or something.





	a gift to the fandom

**Author's Note:**

> why do i do this? oh yeah, rule 35. it is my moral obligation to provide the sleith content (that's the ship name, since it apparently doesn't have it). this is my gift: the first fic in the slav/keith tag. after all, if there's a slav/lance/spongebob fic, it's not fair that there isn't a sleith fic.

Keith had been without Shiro once, and it was heartbreaking. The second time around was worse, if anything. He felt lost and alone, the responsibility of leading the team wearing heavily on his shoulders. Filled with self-doubt, he prayed to gods he didn’t believe in for Shiro’s return, for the strength to lead the team to find him, and for the dark loneliness to be extinguished. It consumed him most days and had begun bleeding into his fighting and leadership occasionally. He was lucky to have teammates that understood and compensated for his shortsightedness when crippled by the searing pain and yearning.

He had nobody to turn to, really. Lance had been pretty good at supporting him emotionally, but Lance wasn’t Shiro. Nobody was Shiro. Shiro was strong, and smart, and kind, and capable. Shiro shared similar struggles to him and they had learned to lean on each other, they had grown together, and having to relearn how to function separately while in the midst of a celestial war was difficult, to say the least.

Pidge helped distract him, with her technical and tactical intelligence; Hunk tried to be as comforting as he could, the paladin’s caring instincts taking over. Lance and Coran tried humor and soft words to pull him out of the darkness, and Allura was soft and gentle with him when he needed it.

It just… it wasn’t enough. Nothing was ever _enough_. The only solid connection he felt he had to Shiro, the person who was the last to really spend any time with the black paladin… had been distant, consumed with his own fears and struggles, but Keith couldn’t handle it anymore. He needed _something_. He needed to know what those last moments with Shiro were like. Was Shiro okay? Was he worried?

Keith sighed, making his way to central command. That’s where his target would be, running numbers and scenarios and constantly plotting how to get them out of this mess. In some ways, he thought perhaps the person he sought out would’ve been a better leader. A better black Paladin. He certainly had the intelligence.

His footsteps echoed in the hallway and in the control room as he stepped inside, nervous. They took him to his destination, standing in front of the one person who could soothe his loneliness.

“Um… excuse me?” he tried, voice cracking. He didn’t want to cry. He had to be strong.

The other person turned their head, blinking beady eyes up at Keith. “In all the quantum realities there was only a 1.3 repeating chance of being approached by you on the eighth day of Shiro’s disappearance,” Slav stated suspiciously. “If you seek to kill me, I will warn you – I am prepared for such an inevitability. There is a 73.3463 percent chance of you succeeding in your mission of execution.”

Keith stumbled over his words, shaking his head. “No, no! I don’t—I don’t want to kill you! I just… you were… you were the last person to really spend any time with Shiro…” Keith trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck, nerves overtaking him.

The beady eyes blinked at him again, one at a time in succession. It reminded Keith of the way lizards blinked. Why was it so endearing?

“Only in this reality and perhaps 34 others.”

Keith sighed. “Well in _this_ reality you were, and that’s all that matters to me right now…”

“If you do not seek to murder me, for which reason have you confronted me?” Slav’s eyes narrowed as he took in the red-slash-black paladin’s expression. His face was sort of turning… pink-ish. Was this a normal human reaction to being questioned as to their motives of seeking out contact?

Keith sighed, trying to gather his words. “This is going to sound weird.”

“It already did. It does. In all realities.”

“Just shut up about other realities for a little bit, okay?” he was getting frustrated.

“I can’t. It’s an integral part of my personality to discuss all realities.”

The paladin rolled his eyes. Perhaps this wasn’t a good decision.

“You smell disturbed,” Slav said, turning all the way around to face him.

“What? I—you can smell me?”

“Humans emit pheromones that Slavlings can smell.”

“Uh…”

“Your emotions are irritating to my senses, please stop.”

Keith bit his lip, ready to turn away and leave.

“You may not leave, paladin. I must know the reason for your visit or in this reality I will become fixated and lose sense of everything and most likely die. There is a 94.632 percent chance of it.”

Well, when put that way… Keith didn’t really want his last link to Shiro to die.

“I just… was hoping you could comfort me?”

Slav was silent. He blinked again – that lizard-like blink that Keith found so adorable – and Keith’s blush intensified.

“You are turning an alarming shade of the pigment you humans call ‘red’. Please explain so that I may understand.”

Fingers running through his hair, Keith tried to figure out how to speak his emotions; it wasn’t something he was particularly comfortable doing.

“I guess I want… like… a hug or something?”

“Horizontal or vertical?”

Keith was confused. “What do you mean ‘horizontal or vertical’?”

“According to my observations of the blue and yellow paladins there are multiple types of ‘ _hugs_ ’ and they come mainly in two forms: horizontal and vertical.”

He had even less of an idea what Slav was talking about.

“If it helps you to understand, the context in which horizontal hugs happen appears to be one where humans disrobe.”

Oh. _Oh_. “N-no! Not—not horizontal!” Keith wheezed. “I d-don’t want… _that_.”

“Except with the former black paladin.”

“Don’t call him that! He’s not dead, we’re going to find him!”

“There is only a 2.33—”

Slav was silenced by a hand over his nose-beak-mouth, Keith’s glare intense. “Do not talk about… the _probability_ of Shiro being alive, okay? I can’t handle that right now. I just… I just need comfort from the last person to spend a significant amount of time with Shiro…”

With the hand over his speaking orifice, Slav couldn’t respond. It took a moment for Keith to figure that out, removing his hand and shifting uncomfortably.

“So then you would prefer a vertical hug?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Keith’s response was emphatic and desperate.

Slav sat down and patted his lap, nodding with a serious expression on his face. Keith’s shoulders dropped in relief and he sat down near the… Slavling. Not yet on his lap, but if he grew desperate enough he knew he’d probably crawl closer to snuggle. Slav shifted and wrapped his tail around Keith, eight arms opening and cradling the red paladin. He patted Keith on the head clumsily with one of his many hands. It was clear Slav really didn’t know what he was doing. The paladin sighed and relaxed against the creature, enjoying the light fuzz covering Slav’s entire body. It wasn’t Shiro, but… it would have to do for now.

**Author's Note:**

> mangotangerine.tumblr.com
> 
> should i create a separate tumblr and ao3 account for the weird shit i write? lol jk idgaf let me be known for my toothbrush porn and weird slav romance fics.


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